Long story short, I sprained a ligament in my hand a couple weeks ago doing squat cleans. My hand hyperextended to my forearm and heard a pop. My wrist was obviously sore right after but there was a spot around my trapezoid bone that is incredibly tender. I can't grip anything without serious pain or use my thumb very much. I have gotten X-rays to rule out a break of any kind. I have been heating it about 3 times a day to ensure good blood flow and it seems to help. Other than that, i'm just keeping my wrist in a brace to limit movement.

Anybody have any experience with an injury like this? Any tips on therapy? Speculation on recovery time?

The extent I have had to looked at is my dad who is a pediatrician. Thinking about getting it looked at soon by one of his friends that is a sports medicine MD.

I suffered a similar injury about 6 months ago and it's just starting to come good now. I also hyper-extended on a squat clean which brought about pain through my wrist whenever it was extended or under load. MRI's failed to show any damage except for some swelling and it was eventually diagnosed by a hand/wrist specialist as scapholunate ligament strain and mid-carpal instability.
I've been doing a lot of strengthening and grip work for the hand and wrist over the past 2 months and I'm finally getting some progress. For a long time it felt like it might never get better and training around it was definitely frustrating, but I was able to clean and also get the bar overhead again recently and am slowly getting back the confidence in loading the wrist. Be patient and smart about it and hopefully it will repair.

Awesome, thanks for the info. It has been about 20 days since it happened and I have made mediocre progress. I have pretty good mobility in my wrist but when put under any sort of load, I experience a lot of pain.

Went to the ortho yesterday and he felt it was probably a partial or stretched scapholunate ligament injury. I'm not into questioning doctors too much but it seems (from my research online) that scapholunate ligament injuries are felt lower on your hand/wrist. He gave me a thumb brace to immobilize my thumb and I am returning in 4 weeks for follow up. He seemed confident that it will be better in 4 weeks.

Here is a picture (I hope it works) of where the "hot spot" is on my hand. Obviously, the black dot is where the sharp pain occurs. Also, not that it matters, but this is my right hand. Photo Booth flips it around.

not to question a diagnosis over the internet in someone I cannot examine, but your marker is located over the base of the second metacarpal and can be where a carpometacarpal joint sprain can occur. Splint and activity modification are the treatment of choice also.

Thanks for the info, Sean. I should be getting an MRI sometime this week or next. The pain has not gotten much better at all since it happened almost a month ago and I have been advised not to wait to get this solved whether it involves surgery or not.

I guess I will give an update on this condition for anybody that may have had an issue similar to mine.

I got an MRI yesterday and saw my ortho the same day. After the x-ray and MRI images, he says he is sure nothing is torn. This was good news so no surgery was needed so now just more waiting for the pain the subside. He gave me a cortisone injection and sent me on my way. I usually am not a huge fan of cortisone injections after having a couple in my knee when I was having knee issues several years ago but I think it should help.

The only bad news from the whole thing was he noticed several cysts on the top of my hand from the MRI and he isn't 100% why they are there. I don't think I have had any serious injury in my wrist/hand before so we can rule that out. He said they could be there just because of the trauma of this current injury a month ago.

This sounds similar to what I've been feeling in my hand (specifically the middle finger / second metacarpal) for the past several days, but from doing thrusters instead. I think what happened is at some point during Fran, my elbows dropped a bit and the weight/load either rested predominantly on the middle of my palm or caused my wrist to be hyper extended. My hand placement was in between what I normally have for front squat and jerks/push press. I usually re-adjust my hand position for the jerk portion of c&j. Anyhow, are there any specific movements I should absolutely stay away from? I've been avoiding bench presses, push presses, clean & jerks, and of course, thrusters. There hasn't been any pain from holding overhead squats or push ups though.